The Target by David Baldacci - review

Macmillan, £14.99 (RRP £16.99)

A heroic duo face a testing assignment in David Baldacci's latest tome The Target[PH]

David Baldacci has long proved one of the most accomplished of American thriller writers and has dabbled in a variety of genres.

His publishers list no fewer than five separate series as well as numerous standalone novels but his more recent espionage-based books featuring government operative Will Robie are clearly among his best work.

Robie first appeared in The Innocent, which was followed by The Hit. This is the third but is it in the same class as its predecessors?

In real life US attempts to assassinate dangerous foreign leaders have tended to end ignominiously: remember the Bay of Pigs fiasco when they targeted Fidel Castro.

But in fiction anything can happen. They might even get their man. Three men meet in clandestine circumstances to plot the death of a murderous and unstable foreign head of state.

The president, the director of the CIA and the president’s national security adviser have the eccentric leader of North Korea in their sights. He is planning a strike against the US after American involvement in a failed coup comes to light.

Unsympathetic CIA head Evan Tucker is convinced that the best people for the job are Robie and his fellow agent Jessica Reel, even though the last mission involving the duo resulted in the death of other agency operatives.

They are sent to the feared “Burner Box”, a training site for agents in North Carolina where they are put through a torturous regime including water boarding and sleep and food deprivation.

They are set for the assignment of their lives but the mission is blown in North Korea and Robie and Reel are dispatched to salvage what they can. At the same time a young girl familiar to the team is caught by a group of neo-Nazis and soon Robie has even more incendiary situations on his hands.

As ever Baldacci keeps things moving at express-train speed but as is appropriate for the espionage genre the dense narrative here requires very close attention and may tax the more casual reader.

However Baldacci aficionados need have no hesitation and this one will whet appetites for the next appearance of his agent hero.